DOCSLIB.ORG

From Symbolic Values to Symbolic Innovation: Internet-Memes and Innovation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From Symbolic Values to Symbolic Innovation: Internet-Memes and Innovation Research Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol From symbolic values to symbolic innovation: Internet-memes and innovation Mickael Benaim Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) AMBS, University of Manchester, Denmark Road, Manchester M13 9NG, United Kingdom ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT JEL classifications: Innovation studies has largely focused on technological assets, while leaving other sources and forms of in- O33 novation less tackled. Among this neglected corpus, this article stresses the important role played by symbolic Z13 value in the consumption and production processes of innovative goods and services. I explore especially O39 Internet-memes that represent iconic productions of the Internet ‘lead culture’, which embed significant sym- M3 bolic values. This article therefore, refers to the economic sociology and innovation management literature to Keywords: emphasise the force of these creations of symbolic value by culture-lead communities, through their production Internet-meme of Internet-memes. I argue that Internet-memes represent a widespread source of innovation in various sectors Symbolic value (from cultural industries to less expect ones like finance). While exploratory, the present study extends the Symbolic innovation debate on the nature of innovation, its symbolic and cultural aspects and its diffusion processes. It ultimately suggests potential new paths for innovation policies to tackle these new forms of innovations. 1. Introduction creativity” (Solon, 2013). The diffusion’s power of memes is facilitated by specific platforms: such as dedicated blogs (e.g. 4chan, Reddit or In 1966 the Beatles were said to be more popular than Jesus. Half a Ihascheezburger); video platforms (e.g. YouTube, Vine or Dailymotion); century later the Fab Five seem to have been succeeded by an hetero- social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or Weibo); direct e-mails or fora. geneous zoo: Keyboard cat, Doge, Confession Bear, Dramatic Chipmunk After imitations or remix processes, it finally becomes part of the In- or Charlie the Unicorn. Who are they? These are examples of Internet- ternet culture and is recognised as an Internet-meme. This phenomenon memes. With over 3 billion of Internet users (UN, 2014), the Internet concerns sometime an entire web-user community and sometime a Culture – and its iconic memes – expanded with the facilities to pro- more specific part of this culture (Schiffman, 2012; Knobel and duce, diffuse and remix digital contents. These online productions are Lankshear, 2005). Importantly, the contents is not viral but memetic. the common blocks of a growing culture that is shaping our daily ex- ‘Viral’ consists in an increasing of the scale of an audience by an epi- perience of Internet. But its influence goes much further than a cultural demic digital diffusion, whereas ‘memetic’ implies a more participative niche trend or obscure geeky characters. Internet-memes, because of process (Burgess, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2009; Schiffman 2014) (Fig. 1). their natures and their generations and diffusion processes may impact There is basically a diversity of Internet-memes: animations, ani- both productions and innovations in many sectors and are thus worthy mutations, videos, pictures and Tumblr or musical productions. Knobel of exploration. and Lankshear (2005) established a typology of five main meme media In order to acknowledge the significance of Internet-memes, there is and idea types including: collaborative, absurdist humour in multi- first a need to clarify what an Internet-meme is. In his book, The Selfish media forms; fan-based memes; hoax memes; celebrations of the absurd Gene (1976), Richard Dawkins defined memes as cultural element of or unusual; and social commentary (social critiques, political com- individuals that can be replicated and transmitted by others through an ments, social activist). These productions generate in their wake a imitation process. More especially, “memes can be ideas; symbols; or myriad of contributions, following a more complex process than some practices formed in diverse incarnations, such as melodies; catch-phrases; of their regressive contents might suggest. Indeed, as pointed by clothing fashion; or architectural styles” Schifman (2012, p. 188). The Schifman (2012) a meme needs a “creative user engagement in the form of main difference between the original biological term ‘meme’ and its parody, pastiche, mash-ups or other derivative work”, involving imitation web cousin is that the mutation process appears in the first case by processes (parroting element from a meme) or re-mix (re-edition). random changes and is diffused according to a Darwinian selection Those types refer in one way or another to pre-existing social and process whereas Internet memes are “altered deliberately by human cultural constructs; norms; values or specific environments. In other E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.014 Received 28 July 2015; Received in revised form 1 June 2017; Accepted 19 February 2018 0048-7333/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Benaim, M., Research Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.014 M. Benaim Research Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Fig. 1. The generation of Internet-memes. Source: Author’s elaboration words, beside their apparent ‘stupid’ forms and contents, internet devices; easier and faster access to online sharing platforms and the memes are hiding huge symbolic values embedded in a complex cul- normalisation of the sharing of personal content. It is also linked to the tural context. Symbolic value is “the immaterial value attributed to an fact that people have more cats in their environment and offer them object or an idea and communicates its symbolic meaning” Ekstrom (2011). higher level of care (Holbrook and Woodside, 2008). As a consequence This “synergy of characteristics related to products’ attractiveness/desir- Internet platforms are inceasingly cats-full5. We can also link the evo- ability to consumers” (Hauge, 2011) is dependent of specific socio-cul- lution of this symbolic value with advertising campaigns: advertisers tural context; and companies are increasingly interested in taking ad- recognise that pets create a membership-feeling among consumers vantage of these symbolic values. Indeed firms increasingly negociate which influences their behaviour (see Lancendorfer et al., 2008). More and produce symbolic values through the design and production of the recently a new meaning was associated with cats: it includes that they products; their marketing, branding & mediating; and their retail and are the symbols of cuteness but overall they are a symbol of the con- consumption (Hauge, 2015). These activities are becoming even more nected community/society that has moulded them (see also Myrick, critical since the new meanings1 – as in Internet-memes – are increas- 2015). The growing number of lolcats, videos of cats and cat- related ingly shared world-wide and not solely restricted to a geographically memes – because of their strong symbolic value – may explain this re- localised community. use by marketers. This movement in marketing’s communication il- To illustrate, we could dissect the symbolic value of a specific lustrates how lolcats, and more generally, Internet memes – because of Internet memes. An iconic meme is the Lolcat2 (see two examples their strong and deeply rooted symbolic value within lead-communities below). As a construct, a Lolcat has to follow three basic principles. – are potentially important intangible assets for firms. As described by First of all, it has to be funny (which has a large spectrum of subjective Ravasi and Rindova (2004) firms accumulate “cultural capital through a appreciation). Secondly it must include a picture of a cat. And thirdly systemic exposure to sub-cultural variety, especially to cultures that generate the English-slang funny text should be written in some specific font significant amount of visible symbols”. Firms in many sectors could benefit (Impact, Arial Black or sans-sheriff fonts). As defined by the Wikipedia from lead-cultures (by analogy with Von Hippel ‘lead users’) within community, “the text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, their innovative production process (Parmentier and Mangematin, and its use in this way is known as ‘lolspeak’ or “kitty pidgin”() . 2014) by referring to their symbolic values and by mobilising their Lolcats were gathering a large online community, then became generation and diffusion processes. To my knowledge; this has not been Internet-memes and slowly were reused by many firms. To understand explored through the prism of the Internet memes. how firms can evaluate such regressive contents will require tracking While sometimes dismissed as trivial, Internet-memes have been the their cultural contexts and evolution: the symbolic value of Lolcats object of several studies in the social and computer sciences – including being deeply rooted in the inter-relations of people with cats from the the recent contributions of Shifman (2013, 2014) – but, to my knowl- early domestication of cats (Linseele et al., 2007; Hu et al., 2013; Van edge, not much in innovation studies. The present article therefore Neer et al., 2014) and in the ancient beliefs of Egyptian dynasties (e.g. addresses Internet-meme as an innovation phenomenon. Memes – with the god Re or the goddess Bastet3) or in the Middle-Age
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Analysis of Factors Influencing Transmission of Internet Memes of English-Speaking Origin in Chinese Online Communities
    ISSN 1798-4769 Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 969-977, September 2017 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0805.19 An Analysis of Factors Influencing Transmission of Internet Memes of English-speaking Origin in Chinese Online Communities Siyue Yang Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, China Abstract—Meme, as defined in Dawkins' 1976 book 'The Selfish Gene', is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture". Internet meme is an extension of meme, with the defining characteristic being its spread via Internet. While online communities of all cultures generate their own memes, owing to the colossal amount of content in English and the long & widespread adoption of Internet across all strata of society in English-speaking countries, the vast majority of high-impact and well-documented memes have their origin in English-speaking communities. In addition to their spread in the original culture sphere, some of these prominent memes have also crossed the cultural boundaries and entered the parlance of Chinese Internet communities. This paper seeks to give a brief introduction to Internet memes in general, and explore the factors that control and/or facilitate a meme’s ability to enter Chinese communities. Index Terms—Internet meme, cross-cultural communication, Chinese Internet I. INTRODUCTION Internet meme, an extension of the term "meme" first coined by Richard Dawkins (1976) in his work The Selfish Gene (p. 192), refers to the unique form of meme that spreads through the Internet. Internet memes in their various forms currently enjoy substantial popularity among Internet users all around the globe, and are flourishing and becoming increasingly entrenched in the mainstream culture of all the disparate societies in this connected world.
    [Show full text]
  • Deciphering L33tspeak
    Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Thesis Deciphering L33t5p34k Internet Slang on Message Boards Supervisor: Master Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of Prof. Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen the requirements for the degree of ―Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde – Afstudeerrichting: Engels‖ By Eveline Flamand 2007-2008 i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my promoter, professor Anne-Marie Vandenbergen, for agreeing on supervising this perhaps unconventional thesis. Secondly I would like to mention my brother, who recently graduated as a computer engineer and who has helped me out when my knowledge on electronic technology did not suffice. Niels Cuelenaere also helped me out by providing me with some material and helping me with a Swedish translation. The people who came up to me and told me they would like to read my thesis, have encouraged me massively. In moments of doubt, they made me realize that there is an audience for this kind of research, which made me even more determined to finish this thesis successfully. Finally, I would also like to mention the members of the Filologica forum, who have been an inspiration for me. ii Index 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 2. Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 1 2.1 4chan ...............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Describing Doggo-Speak: Features of Doggo Meme Language
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2018 Describing Doggo-Speak: Features of Doggo Meme Language Jennifer Bivens The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2718 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] DESCRIBING DOGGO-SPEAK: FEATURES OF DOGGO MEME LANGUAGE by JENNIFER BIVENS A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2018 © 2018 Jennifer Bivens All Rights Reserved ii Describing Doggo-Speak: Features of Doggo Meme Language by Jennifer Bivens This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Date William Sakas Thesis Advisor Date Gita Martohardjono Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Describing Doggo-Speak: Features of Doggo Meme Language by Jennifer Bivens Advisor: William Sakas Doggo-speak is a specialized way of writing most commonly associated with captions on Doggo memes, humorous images of dogs shared in online communities. This paper will explore linguistic features of Doggo-speak through analysis of social media posts by Doggo fan pages. It will use the discussed features as inputs to five machine learning classifiers and will show, through this classification task, that the discussed features are sufficient for distinguishing between Doggo- speak and more general English text.
    [Show full text]
  • Speaking in Lolcats
    Transcribed text of an address to the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario, Richmond Hill, Ontario, November 12, 2009. Audio and slides available at http://www.downes.ca/presentation/232 Thanks everyone, and people online you should be hearing me OK, if not just say something in the chat area. Your chat area is being viewed by an audience here in Richmond Hill, which I had never really heard of before I came here, so I’m kind of… that’s good Christina, excellent. Now some of the people in the room may be joining you and anything you say in the chat area can be viewed by people in the room. We’re recording the Elluminate session – I’m not going to press my luck and try for video. Elluminate does support video and it supports it rather well, but I have to be standing right here the entire time because it would use the iSight monitor (I don’t have a video camera hooked up) and I don’t want to do the entire presentation like this, so I won’t. This is the second of two presentations today, and as I said in the first presentation, when you do two presentations in a day, there’s a good one and a bad one – this is the good one. It’s a fairly sweeping and ambitious presentation. It’s probably not the sort of presentation you’ll see in any of the other sessions. I’m trying to go someplace a bit different. 2 Stephen Downes It’s the first time I’ve tried this material, though I’ve tried bits and pieces of it, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.
    [Show full text]
  • So Language. Very Prescribe. Wow. the Familiar Popular Dispute Between Descriptivists and Prescriptivists About Grammar Is
    So language. Very prescribe. Wow. Abstract: The philosophical dispute about linguistic normativity is one battlefield in a larger war over the nature of language as an object of scientific study. For those influenced by Wittgenstein, language involves following – or failing to follow – public, prescriptive rules; for Chomsky and his followers, language is a property of individual minds and brains, and the grammatical judgements of any mature individual speaker – her competence – cannot be, in any linguistic sense, ‘wrong’. As I argue here, the recent ‘doge meme’ internet fad provides surprising evidence for the prescriptivist view. Normative attitudes towards linguistic practices are a ubiquitous feature of those practices, and there is no principled basis on which to regard them as non-linguistic. Keywords: Chomsky; Doge; I-Language; Normativity; Prescriptivism. The familiar popular dispute between descriptivists and prescriptivists about grammar is – let us not mince words here – a profoundly tiresome and pointless one (Wallace 2001), which the explosion of opportunities for pedantry afforded by the internet has done everything to amplify, and nothing to revivify; I have no intention of pursuing it here. But the dispute has roots, or at any rate analogues, in some deep issues in theoretical linguistics and the philosophy of language; and as I shall argue, interesting light is shed on that dispute by a most unlikely online phenomenon. I begin by summarising the main threads of the philosophical debate about normativity in grammar, and the apparent stalemate they have recently issued in. I then try to make whatever sense can be made of the wilfully absurd ‘Doge’ meme, before showing how that phenomenon, surprisingly, provides significant evidence for the prescriptivist case.
    [Show full text]
  • An Instance of Hybrid Cryptography
    EsoCipher: An Instance of Hybrid Cryptography Neel Adwani University of Petroleum and Energy Studies Dehradun, Uttarakhand [email protected] ABSTRACT esoteric language is Brainfuck [5], which became notable for its This paper proposes a whole new concept in the field of Cryptog- minimalistic expressions. The whole language constitutes 8 simple raphy, i.e., EsoCiphers. Short for Esoteric Cipher, EsoCipher is an commands and an instruction pointer. LOLCODE [8] is yet another algorithm, which can be understood by a few, who have the knowl- esoteric language, which is based on the lolcat meme. So, its files edge about its backend architecture. The idea behind this concept are generated of the extensions .lol and .lols. Since its inspiration is derived from esoteric programming languages, but EsoCiphers comes from memes over the internet, the syntax contains keywords will be having a practical use in the future, as more research is done like HAI, BTW, GTFO, KTHXBYE. on the topic. Although the algorithm is quite simple to understand, While there’s no intended practical use of esoteric languages, Es- the complexity of the output will indeed prove to be difficult to oCipher may be considered obfuscated but it can be proven useful in bruteforce if a secret is embedded to it. It uses a hybrid cryptog- some fields. Since a lot of exploration hasn’t been done around this raphy based technique, which combines ASCII, Binary, Octal and topic, it is hard to determine the usability of the given algorithms in ROT 13 ciphers. The implementation and similarity index has been this paper, but intentionally EsoCiphers can be useful in preventing provided to show that it can be implemented practically.
    [Show full text]
  • Index of Linguistic Items
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42359-5 — The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language 3rd Edition David Crystal Index More Information VI INDEX OF LINGUISTIC ITEMS A auto 322, 330, 493 classist 189 -eau(x) 213 auto- 138 c’mon 79 -ectomy 210 a indefinite article 234–5, 350 aye 346 co- 138 -ed form 208, 210, 216, 223, 224, 237, short vs long 327, 345, 371 cockroach 149 346, 350 verb particle 367 B colour 179 -ed vs t (verb ending) 216, 331, 493 a- 138, 335 contra- 138 -ee 210, 220 -a noun singular 212 /b-/, /-b/ (sound symbolism) 263 could 224 -een 358 noun plural 212 B/b 271, 280 counter- 138 -eer 210, 220 -a- (linking vowel) 139 babbling 483 cowboy 148 eh 319 A/a 271, 280 back of 331 crime 176 eh? 230, 362 AA (abbreviations) 131 bad 211 curate’s egg 437 elder/eldest 211 -able 210, 223 barely 230 cyber- 452 elfstedentocht 383 ableism 189 bastard 263 Elizabeth 158 -acea 210 be 224, 233, 237, 243, 367 D -elle 160 a crapella 498 inflected 21, 363 ’em 287 -ae (plural) 213 regional variation 342 /d-/, /-d/ (sound symbolism) 263 en- 138 after (aspectual) 358, 363 be- 138 D/d 271, 280–1 encyclop(a)edia 497 -age 210, 220 be about to 236 da 367 encyclopediathon 143 ageist 189 been 367 danfo 495 -ene 160 agri- 139 be going to 96, 236 dare 224 -en form 21, 210, 212, -aholic 139 Berks 97 data 213 346, 461 -aid 143, 191 best 211 daviely 352 Englexit 124 ain’t 319, 498 be to 236 De- 160 -er adjective base ending 211 aitch 359 better 211 de- 138 familiarity marker 141, 210 -al 210, 220, 223 between you and I 206, 215 demi- 138 noun ending
    [Show full text]
  • Gamespeak for N00bs a Linguistic and Pragmatic Analysis of Gamers‟ Language
    Gamespeak for n00bs A linguistic and pragmatic analysis of gamers‟ language Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Jasmin FUCHS am Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Begutachterin: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Phil. Hermine Penz Graz, 2013 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5 2. The multiplayer game Counter-Strike: Source .................................................................. 7 2.1. Gameplay ................................................................................................................... 7 3. Language and the Internet .................................................................................................. 8 3.1. Computer-mediated communication .......................................................................... 9 3.2. Types of computer-mediated communication .......................................................... 10 3.3. Synchronous communication ................................................................................... 11 3.4. Asynchronous communication ................................................................................. 12 3.5. Computer-mediated communication tools used in games ........................................ 12 3.5.1. TeamSpeak ......................................................................................................... 13 3.5.2.
    [Show full text]
  • Ronia Cabansag LING
    Ronia Cabansag LING 402 - Modern English Grammar Final Project 6 Dec 2020 The Grammar of Internet Humor: LOLspeak, Doge, and Because X As an informal space, social media allows users to play with written, published language in ways that would be less appropriate in other contexts. This unique medium has produced equally unique cases of language that appear to reject both prescriptive and descriptive grammar rules. In these cases, grammar rules are purposefully broken to produce a humorous result. One such case is Doge, an viral instance of internet language play characterized by two-word phrases that begin with “much,” “many,” “so,” “such,” or “very,” and end with an unexpected word (Figure 1). Figure 1: A Doge meme created But though they reject recognized rules, these by Marshall (2016) cases of internet humor still appear to follow some set of rules. In the case of Doge, for example, McCulloch (2014a) documents an instance where one Facebook user corrects another’s Doge phrase choices: An example that proves my point conveniently popped up on my Facebook while I was writing this, showing someone actually correcting someone else’s use of doge modifiers to be more ungrammatical. Friend #1 (posting link): Doge is a rescue dog. Much respect. So noble. Wow. Friend #2 (commenting): Your dogeing is too coherent. “Much noble, so respect.” This suggests that there are grammar rules to describe seemingly ungrammatical instances of internet humor. The purpose of this project is to explore the grammar of 3 prevalent categories of internet humor
    [Show full text]
  • From Symbolic Values to Symbolic Innovations
    Paper to be presented at DRUID15, Rome, June 15-17, 2015 (Coorganized with LUISS) FROM SYMBOLIC VALUES TO SYMBOLIC INNOVATIONS EVIDENCE BASED ON INTERNET-MEMES Mickael Benaim University of Manchester/MBS Manchester Institute of Innovation Research [email protected] Abstract Technological assets capture the attention of many scholars in innovation studies, while leaving other sources and forms of innovation less tackled. Among this neglected corpus, this article stresses the important role played by symbolic value in the production and consumption processes of innovative goods and services. We focus more especially on Internet-memes - such as lolcats - that represent iconic productions of the Internet ?lead culture? i.e. embed significant symbolic values. Therefore, this article refers to the economic sociology and strategic management literature to emphasis the force of the symbolic values? creation by new culture-lead communities, through their not so trivial productions: the Internet-memes. We especially aim to contribute to innovation studies and to refine the concept of symbolic innovation, by applying it to both physical and digital goods and services. We argue that Internet-memes are symbolic innovations per-se, but we also emphasise that they represent an almost boundless source of innovative goods and services in various sectors from cultural industries to less expected ones like finance. Jelcodes:O31,O33 ** Please do not cite without permission ** FROM SYMBOLIC VALUES TO SYMBOLIC INNOVATIONS EVIDENCE BASED ON INTERNET-MEMES Abstract: Many innovation scholars focused on technological assets, while leaving other sources and forms of innovation less tackled. Among this neglected corpus, this article stresses the important role plays by symbolic value in the production and consumption processes of innovative goods and services.
    [Show full text]
  • 3.5 Years of Augmented 4Chan Posts from the Politically Incorrect Board
    Proceedings of the Fourteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2020) Raiders of the Lost Kek: 3.5 Years of Augmented 4chan Posts from the Politically Incorrect Board Antonis Papasavva,*,§ Savvas Zannettou,†,§ Emiliano De Cristofaro,*,§ Gianluca Stringhini,‡,§ Jeremy Blackburn#,§ *University College London, †Max-Planck-Institut fur¨ Informatik, ‡Boston University, #Binghamton University, §iDRAMA Lab {antonis.papasavva.19, e.decristofaro}@ucl.ac.uk, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract tion of users who committed mass shootings (Austin 2019; Ali Breland 2019; Evans 2018). This paper presents a dataset with over 3.3M threads and 4chan is an imageboard where users (aka Original Posters, 134.5M posts from the Politically Incorrect board (/pol/) of or OPs) can create a thread by posting an image and a mes- the imageboard forum 4chan, posted over a period of al- most 3.5 years (June 2016-November 2019). To the best of sage to a board; others can post in the OP’s thread, with a our knowledge, this represents the largest publicly available message and/or an image. Among 4chan’s key features are 4chan dataset, providing the community with an archive of anonymity and ephemerality; users do not need to register to posts that have been permanently deleted from 4chan and are post content, and in fact the overwhelming majority of posts otherwise inaccessible. We augment the data with a set of ad- are anonymous. At most, threads are archived after they be- ditional labels, including toxicity scores and the named enti- come inactive and deleted within 7 days.
    [Show full text]
  • Verge 7 Iz in Ur Meme / Aminalizin Teh Langwich: a Linguistic Study Of
    Verge 7 Iz in ur meme / aminalizin teh langwich: A linguistic study of LOLcats Aliza Rosen Verge 7 Rosen 2 As far as Internet culture goes, the pairing of cat pictures with grammatically erroneous captions has become one of the most pervasive trends of the past few years. LOLcats, as they are termed – a combination of LOL, Internet slang for “Laugh Out Loud,” and cat, the domesticated feline found in perhaps too many American households – have evolved from an Internet fad to a culture all their own. That is not to say, though, that just any pair of a caption and a picture of a cat is a LOLcat; while websites like icanhascheezburger.com and lolcats.com accept submissions from all users, there is inarguably an art to creating a quality LOLcat. The trend inevitably evolves and new styles emerge, but the classic LOLcat embodies a certain few traits, specifically with regard to the captions created. This paper aims to examine LOLcat captions in terms of the language employed, which is notably distinct from correct English and yet is still intelligible to most English speakers. While it is understood that the language, called LOLspeak, inevitably encounters some variance among its users, the spelling changes and altered grammatical structure suggest a number of overlying patterns. Many have referred to LOLcat language as “kitty pidgin,” a kind of mangled English adopted by cats in order to communicate with their owners. However, the alterations that occur from English to LOLspeak do not completely match the usual characteristics of a pidgin language. In fact, they more accurately represent a mix of “baby talk,” the variation many adults use when talking to infants and toddlers, and Leetspeak, the Internet lingo developed mainly by those playing online video games like Counterstrike.
    [Show full text]